This is a guide on Spear Avenger (Hunting + Earth). This is my favourite class as it’s a well-rounded character with a cool fiery spear attack visual This focuses on physical/piercing damage, Hunting (spear) is the main mastery, and Earth skills are used to increase physical damage and bolster defense.

Pros:

Well-rounded character with good offense and defense

Very good at killing bosses

Cool attack visual (fiery spear)

Cons:

Mediocre AOE. This, however, can be mitigated by using a Scroll of the Behemoth when you want good AOE.

Attribute Distribution

Like most spear builds, the recommended attribute distribution is roughly 1:1 for Strength and Dexterity, but more on Dexterity. I basically split 1:1 until around level 60, then dump all points into Dexterity after that. If you don’t get any Energy from gears, it might be a good idea to spend a few points on Energy too.

Skill Distribution

Hunting:

Take Down tree: full. Good offense and charge skill. Eviscerate is not important though and can be left for last.

Gouge: full. Decent offense skill. This is not important and can be left for last.

Earth:

Earth Enchantment tree: 1 point in Earth Enchantment, full on Brimstone and Stone Skin. Good offense (physical) and defense (Fire resistance) buffs.

Volatility: full. Good offense (physical) buff.

Heat Shield: full. Good defense buff (fire and physical resistance).

Stone Form: 1 point. Very good defense cooldown.

You should get all important skills at around level 60, and all of the above before level 70.

Late Game Set-Up

For late game (Act 5 Legendary), this is what you should aim for (and you can achieve) in terms of set-up:

All skills: +4

Offense:

Offensive Ability: 1.2k

DPS without Cooldowns: 6k.This means DPS with Cooldowns (Call of the Hunt and Scroll of the Primal Chaos) would be 18k or more. And note that Volatility also gives 33% chance of 123% increase in Physical damage.

Resistance for Fire/Cold/Lightning/Pierce/Vitality/Poison/Stun: around 50% or more. You should have 80% resistance for Fire and Poison resistance thanks to Stone Skin and Herbal Remedy.

Bleeding Resistance: probably do not leave it at -100% but doesn’t need to be high. My character has -35% and it was fine for Act 5 Legendary. Just use Stone Form if you got a strong bleeding attack (which is rare).

Change to avoid projectile: You already have 35% from Find Cover skill.

Attack damage converted to Health: around 15%. This considerably increases the survivability of your character.

End-Game Set-Up

For end-game, you can increase some stats (e.g. Offensive Ability, DPS, Defensive Ability) further. This is what I have at level 75:

Offensive Ability: 1.35k

DPS without Cooldowns: 8.5kThis means DPS with Cooldowns (Call of the Hunt and Scroll of the Primal Chaos) would be 23k or more. And note that Volatility also gives 33% chance of ~120% increase in Physical damage.

Defensive Ability: 2k. This level of DA makes you immune or near immune to most melee attack.

The only downside (compared to my late-game set-up) is +3/+4 on skills (not +4 to all), but this is still much better overall.

Late Game Gears

Get a mix of legendaries and green gears (with relics/charms) to achieve the above offense/defense target. The exact gears depend on what you can get, but some tips are:

Arms slot: Stonebinder’s Cuffs for the +3 skills and elemental resistances. This can be farmed from the Gorgon Queens/Heroes.

Head slot: a good one is a green one with Hallowed prefix which gives +1 to all skills and 50+% vitality resistance. This can be farmed from the shops.

Weapon slot: A good green spear is one with Devouring suffix (gives Attack damage converted to Health) and some good prefix such as Veteran's (+Physical Damage, +Offensive Ability, +Speed). This can then be enchanted with the Achilles relic to boost damage further. Or you can get a green spear with good damage-type prefix and suffix, then enchant it with the Anubis' Wrath relic to get the Attack damage converted to Health effect. Just farm the shops until you get a good green spear.

Artifact: Symbol of the Polymath is a good one, and should be quite easy to get.

Scroll: Probably the best scroll for single-target is the Scroll of the Primal Chaos, and best scroll for AOE is the Scroll of the Behemoth.

End-Game Gears

At end-game, you aim for best-in-slot gears given the target set-up. This is what I use at level 75:

Land-End ground floor (Act 5): for the Blacksteel Spike. On average it takes around 20-30 runs, or around 400-500 fire giant kills to get one Blacksteel Spike. It took me a few hundreds runs to get a Blacksteel Spike with Devouring suffix.

Tactics

The tactics are quite simple:

Vs mobs: Cast Study Prey, then wait for melee to come in and kill them, then cast Study Prey on ranged, rush in (Take down) and kill them. If you want fast clearing, use Scroll of the Behemoth and/or Call of the Hunt. It usually takes 1 - 2 hits to kill a target.

Vs bosses: Use Call of the Hunt and Scroll of the Primal Chaos, cast Study Prey, rush in. It usually takes less than 10 seconds to kill a boss.

I don't like to use Monster Lure as Spear Avenger because I think thematically, it fits more with a bow user. Anyway with my current end-game character (more damage, more HP, more DA), dark elves become quite easy. More DA also helps here because you don't have to worry much about the melees around them.

Currently I'm farming the Blacksteel Spike. Got one with a mediocre prefix but it is already better than my best green spear. Can't wait for finding one with good prefix/suffix. It seems the Blacksteel Spike is the new Best-in-Slot spear in TQ.